'Look a-yander at the bar!' he shrieked.
But the cub had crouched on the floor since the stick had fallen, and was whimpering again, and looking about in cowardly appeal.
The old man rallied. 'What d'ye bring the savage beastis home fur, Hiram, out'n the woods whar they b'long?' he vociferated.
'Kase he 'lowed he hed killed the dam, an' the young 'un war bound ter starve,' put in the other old man, actuated, perhaps, by some sympathy for the grandson, whose strength and youth counted for naught against this adversary.
'What air ye a-aimin' ter do with it? Ter kill sech chillen ez happen ter make game o' ye? That's what the prophets of old 'cited thar bars ter do—ter kill the little laffin' chillen.'
Kelsey winced. The cruelties of the old chronicles bore hard upon his wavering faith.
The old man saw his advantage, and with the wantonness of tyranny followed it up: 'That's it—that's it! That would suit Hiram, like the prophets—ter kill the innercent chillen!'
The young man recoiled suddenly. The patriarch, a wild terror on his pallid, aged face, recognised the significance of his words. He held up his shaking hands as if to recall them—to clutch them. He had remembered the domestic tragedy; the humble figure of the little mountain child, all gaiety and dimples and gurgling laughter, who had known no grief and had wrought such woe, who had left a rude, empty cradle in the corner, a mound—such a tiny mound!—in the graveyard, and an imperishable anguish of self-reproach, unquenchable as the fires of hell.
'I furgot—I furgot!' shrieked the old man. 'I furgot the baby! When war she buried?—las' week or year afore las'? The only one—the only great-gran'child I ever hed. The frien'liest baby! Knowed me jes' ez well!' He burst into senile tears. 'Don't ye go, Hiram. What did the doctor say ye gin her? Laws-a-massy! 'Pears like 'twar jes' yestiddy she war a-crawlin' 'round the floor, stidd'er that heejus beastis ez I wisht war in the woods—laffin'—Lord A'mighty! laffin' an' takin' notice ez peart. Hiram, don't ye go—don't ye go! Peartes', pretties' chile I ever see—an' I had six o' my own—an' the frien'lies'! An' I hed planned fur sech a many pleasures when she hed got some growth an' hed l'arned ter talk. I wanted ter hear what she hed ter say—the only great-gran'child I ever hed—an' now the words will never be spoke. 'Pears like ter me ez the Lord shows mighty little jedgmint ter take her, an' leave me a-cumberin' the groun'.'
Then he began once more to wring his hands and sob aloud—that piteous weeping of the aged!—and to mumble brokenly, 'The frien'lies' baby!'